From Romanticism to Cynicism and Back Again

This past weekend, a friend of mine (who is British so obviously amazing!) was commenting on my life motto (Live.Love.Lose.Love.Live). One my best friends, Code Name Earrings, was kind enough to pass on my life motto during her time in the UK, so now it is floating around out there in my other favorite country. Anyways, he was mentioning that if it were up to him, the motto would actually be swapped to say Live.Love.Lose.LIVE.LOVE because he feels like after you lose, you learn to live before you can love again. He also pointed out that you don't have to love again in order to be living. This lead to a very interesting conversation about two of my favorite subjects--love and mottos. I thought I would share with you what my answer to him was.

Before I fell in love for the first time (and subsequently got my heart good and ripped out) I had a very idealistic view of love. This makes sense as I am an unwavering optimist and romantic(looking a Bride magazines to pass time on long flights at the age of 5). In a way I idolized love, thinking that it was somehow this pure life force that, once acquired, would be like an explosion of unicorns, rainbows, and Reese's Peanut Butter cups (or something like that...actually it sounds kind of scary if the unicorns are actually exploding instead of simply bursting forth from the rainbow). When that love did not work out (and I mean REALLY didn't work out) I thought this meant that either 1. it hadn't actually been love or 2. everything I had ever imagined about love, and the person I was in love with was actually false and nothing in life could ever be trusted again (can you tell I am also passionate and dramatic?) It took me a long time (and some very wise counsel) to see that just because love doesn't work out doesn't mean that it was not amazing or worth experiencing, sometimes you just end up loving someone who isn't your lobster, which usually involves an ending where people get hurt. This is a critical realization and a key part of growing up. It's almost like there were two versions of me: the before love and the after heartbreak. And honestly, although there is something really beautiful about the pure, naive idea of love I used to hold, I am glad I have been (painfully) enlightened. Now I realize that you may end up being in love with a bunch of people before you find someone you want to marry, and I think that's OK. I have a hard time when people over-emphasize things like not saying I love you (not that we should throw it around) because we think that somehow protects us from the actual love we are feeling (and not saying). Love is precious, but it isn't a one time only deal for most of us. And if we are determined to make it such (in dating), we are setting ourselves up to be exceedingly disappointed if it doesn't work out. Side note: there is a lot to be said for being in high school or college when experiencing this breakthrough as there is still A LOT of growing up to be done. And that is really what my life motto is about. After the losing, you experience a different kind of love: you realize that you can love apart from the heartache you have experienced. You can love your family, your friends, and the ultimate point: you can love and BE LOVED by God. And then you are living again! So although it may seem that my motto is simply about moving from heartache to heartache in search of the perfect blend of Harry Potter, Ryan Gosling, and Boaz (shout out to all the Christian seminars on love involving Ruth and Boaz written by people who seem to have found a lot of romance in the book that I simply have never found, sorry!) but what I'm really saying is that after you get your heart broken by a man/woman or any hard situation in life, you come to a place where you re-learn some important truths about love. For me the most important was that no one satisfies like God, no one on earth will ever live up to all my expectations, and it wasn't until I dealt with that that I felt ready to love and be loved in return (if you want you can sing that line and pretend you are Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge...I did!). And once you realize that earthly love is never perfect, you no longer have to live in fear that you will somehow always mess it up, or never be enough. And then my friends, you are really living!

As always I welcome your thoughts, arguments, and life mottos.